


Terrible Beautiful Planet

by falafelfiction



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jasper Jordan - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falafelfiction/pseuds/falafelfiction
Summary: "For all its faults, Earth is really beautiful." The story of Jasper's relationship with the world he loved but couldn't survive.





	Terrible Beautiful Planet

**Author's Note:**

> This fic just spilled out of me, completely unplanned, this weekend. I really needed more closure over Jasper's suicide than the show gave me. I really loved this character. For all his faults - Jasper Jordan was really beautiful. For other fans that loved this character I really hope that reading this story helps you to grieve as writing this fic helped me. I'm dedicating this one to Devon Bostick for his brave compassionate performance in an all too bleak story.

**  
**

There are no windows in Jasper and Monty's shared cell in the Sky Box. There's no weed or moonshine either, but they both agree that it’s the starboard window bay they miss the most. It’s a good thing that the two of them are so inventive. During those early weeks after their arrest they make up endless dumbass games to keep themselves entertained in lock up. They sing songs and drum on the bars of their bunk bed. They have pillow fights with ridiculously complex combat rules. They invent their own handshakes and high fives. One night Jasper decides that they can still get high by doing handstands against the wall and letting the blood rush to their heads. They end up rolling around on the floor in fits of laughter so loud that the guards come and put them in separate cells, punishing them for having too much fun together.

With Monty gone, it’s harder for Jasper to distract himself from what’s to come. Jasper knows the next time he sees windows it’ll be in an airlock on the day he turns eighteen. Two windows, one facing the lethal void of space, the other looking back into the Ark where he’s lived all his life. He’s heard that most people stand at this window looking at their loved ones before they get floated. But Monty’s birthday comes two months before his and he’s hoping his parents won’t come to his execution. He’s written letters asking them not to.

When it’s Jasper’s time, he’d rather be looking out the other window. He’d rather have a last view of the moon and that beautiful blue green planet below. He’d like a final moment alone with his dreams of what it’d be like to actually go there.

 

~*~

 

The first time Jasper steps out of the Dropship and sets foot on Earth, his mouth is wide open and whooping. He’s breathing the probably toxic air deep into his lungs. He’s running wild, smelling every plant, touching every tree and it’s beautiful. It’s all so beautiful. If he’s being exposed to enough radiation to kill him then it’ll still have been worth it. Better to live a few short days on Earth than a lifetime trapped up in space.

The second time Jasper steps out of the Dropship, it’s a week later. A week since he watched his first sunrise and then got speared. This time Jasper sets foot on Earth with trembling steps. He’s holding tight to Octavia’s hand and his other palm is pressed to his heart. He jumps at every noise, fearing another weapon hurled out of nowhere. His stomach turns at the smell of the animal carcasses that his friends have been feeding off, the buzz of black flies. His eyes flick nervously to the camp’s cemetery where four graves have already been filled. Almost five. Almost _him_.

The others give Jasper a wide berth and squeamish looks. None of them thought he’d survive the spear or the infection that came after. Octavia says he drove them all crazy with his cries of pain, that they couldn’t get any sleep with him wailing through the night. Jasper doesn’t remember screaming but his body does. His throat is hoarse, his rib-cage aches and his brain throbs and strains like it’s changed shape. Maybe it has.

Octavia wants him to take a few steps outside the walls, but he can’t. Not yet. Finn sidles over and gives him his goggles back, saying they found them in the woods when they’d been following a trail of his blood. They found his Earth Day shirt too, stained and torn at the chest. His favorite shirt. It’s ruined now but he still holds onto it. It was Jasper's dad who gave him this shirt, a relic from a time when humans still had hope that they could save the planet by reducing carbon emissions and recycling cans. A time before the bombs. 

Jasper sits down shakily on a log, pulling his goggles over his eyes. And suddenly it’s like he’s looking at the world through windows again. Earth looks a lot darker through these lenses. So much darker than it’d seemed before.

 

~*~

 

When Jasper first eats jobi nuts, Earth is revealed to him in all its terrible true colors. Earth is a scary place, full of screaming, and it’s not survivable. Not for him at least. To survive this planet you have to make yourself a monster. And he’s not just talking about the Grounders circling their walls, reaching in through their flimsy defenses. He’s talking about the other kids in their camp, the kids who are already killing and torturing and hanging people from trees because apparently that’s what it takes to survive around here.

Jasper feels certain that he’s going to die, that they're all going to die, probably soon. He tells Octavia he loves her because _‘I love you’_ seems like the best words to leave this world with. What else matters? Octavia sits Jasper down and gives him a stick. She promises nobody will see him if he just holds onto that stick. It makes sense. Kinda makes sense. Maybe he’s just going crazy.

Monty runs up to him, falling to his knees. Monty still sees him at least.

“I’m looking for the moon,” says Monty. “Have you seen it?”

Monty is wearing a hat. Monty never wears hats. He looks adorable.

“Jasper, have you seen the moon?!” he asks, more urgently.

“Starboard window?” Jasper suggests.

Monty’s face breaks into a smile. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” Jasper says, smiling back.

Jasper wants to pull Monty into a hug, but his friend goes scurrying off again, still searching. So Jasper hugs his stick instead. He closes his eyes. The jobi nuts are making him sleepy now. But his fear has melted away and Earth is beautiful again. If he dies now he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad. He could die now with a smile.

 

~*~

 

One week in the mountain and Jasper’s so relieved to be safe from the Earth above. He could happily spend the rest of his days underground. Living far away from the grounders and the spears and the terrible things he’s done to survive.

Jasper is still in the hospital wing with a drip in his hand and pills to soothe his gag reflex. Since they filtered Maya’s blood through his system he can’t seem to stop puking. But Jasper doesn’t care. He’s happy. He’s so happy that Maya is alive. That he could do something to save her. The other mountain people are happy too. They’ve been lining up to visit him, their cards and gifts piling up by his bedside. They tell him sad stories of how they’ve lost so many loved ones to the radiation leaks. How Maya’s recovery is a miracle to them. How they never dreamed that an outsider would volunteer their blood. Jasper says he never dreamed he'd get to eat chocolate cake so he’s grateful to them too. His visitors laugh at that, but when Jasper glances across to Maya in the bed beside him, she’s not even smiling.

That night, they hold hands in the gap between their beds and share the earbuds of Maya’s iPod. But Jasper’s not really listening to the music.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he admits.

Maya shakes her head. “Why would you want to be trapped down in a bunker? It’s no way to live. Not when there’s a whole beautiful world up there to explore.”

Jasper winces. That’s how he felt about Earth before he was sent to the ground and he learned how terrible it could be. He knows Maya would still love to see it. He knows she’s painted endless sunrises and sunsets in her art classes. He’d give anything to show her the real thing.

But he can’t show Maya the ground. It’d kill her. And he won’t let her die.

“I’d give up the whole world for you,” Jasper blurts out.

Maya can’t help giggling at that. They’re both still high on sedatives.

“That’s definitely the corniest line you’ve come up with.”

Jasper nods, owning it. But he hopes Maya knows it’s still true.

 

~*~

 

Jasper can’t bring himself to move from the Mount Weather mess hall. If nobody had come for him, he’d have probably sat there and starved to death in that room filled with irradiated corpses, unable to leave, unwilling to let her go.

It’s Bellamy who they send to get him. Bellamy doesn’t say a word, just stoops and seizes Jasper under his arms, prying him and Maya apart. Jasper struggles and screams, kicks and snarls. But Bellamy is stronger, so it does him no good. As he’s dragged away, Jasper twists his neck, trying to get one last look at her face, still beautiful despite the blisters and burns. His vision’s too blurry with tears to see her.

Jasper’s brought outside to find that Earth has gotten much colder during the time he’s been trapped in the mountain. He’s already shaking from shock and suddenly there’s a stranger throwing a coat around him. Some adult he doesn’t know who must’ve come down in the Ark. The other prisoners from the bunker are up in the chill air too, all trembling like he is, all of them weakened by their time underground without sun. No, wait…not all of them. Jasper notices Fox is missing. He asks Bellamy where she is, but he’s already crying again because he already knows.

“Three dead, forty-four alive,” Bellamy says, still holding him up. “You did good.”

Jasper doesn’t know what the hell is wrong with Bellamy’s eyes if he only counted three people dead down in that mountain. Jasper walks in a daze as they’re led back to camp. Not to the Dropship, but to some new camp where the Council are in charge again. A few hours into their trek and Jasper starts to wonder where Finn is. He asks Octavia. She can’t bring herself to say it and Jasper feels like he might just be sick.

“Was it me?” he asks. “Did I kill him?”

Octavia blinks in alarm. “Jasper, what are you…”

He swallows. “When I fired the rockets.”

“ _No_. No, it wasn’t you. It was…you don’t want to know.”

He nods. She’s probably right. There’s already so many things Jasper wishes he didn’t know. So many things he wishes he hadn't seen. Three of his best friends are mass murderers. Maya and all her people are dead because he failed to save them in time. Fox is dead. Finn is dead. And it’s not until they reach the new camp, not until Jasper’s seen some of the other bunker kids being reunited with their families, that Sinclair comes to him, a list in hand, and lets Jasper know that his parents are dead too. They didn’t survive their fall to Earth.

The world goes very quiet then. Jasper lowers himself onto the ground, curls himself into a ball and clings to the grass. The goggles Raven gave back to him have fallen from his hands. He won’t put them on again. It doesn’t feel like they belong to him anymore.

Those goggles belong to someone else that’s died.

 

~*~

 

Jasper doesn’t know what to do. He settles on doing nothing.

He tries very hard to _be_ nothing and he hopes everyone will just leave him alone.

But there’s this thing at the new camp called 'work detail'. Everyone’s expected to contribute. Everyone _is_ contributing except for him. So when the guards find Jasper sitting on the grass doing nothing, they pull him to his feet and shove him towards the nearest job. Jasper goes through the motions, sowing seeds in the garden, till he faints and wakes up in the infirmary. Dr Griffin just looks at him sternly. She tells him to eat. Tells him to sleep at night. Tells him she can’t spare a hospital bed for someone who’s making themselves ill.

Jasper only eats when Monty forces him to. Every day Monty brings him a bowl and says he’s not going away until Jasper finishes. So Jasper chokes down the food and he tells Monty to get the hell away from him. Then Monty just nods and leaves.

One day Raven comes to Jasper saying she’s going to teach him how to drive. Since Raven is one of the few friends he can stand to be around, Jasper accepts. They take the Rover out onto the barren grassy plains and she talks him through its peddles and gears. Once he knows what he’s doing Raven lets him drive really fast with the windows rolled down. They both whoop as he hits high speed and the wind rushes in. Jasper knows that Raven would rather by joyriding with Finn just as Jasper wishes he were driving around with Maya. But neither of them says it. They just let the roar of the engine drown out their grief. They let the wild wind stir up their hair. They breathe in the broken world together.

Then one night, Jasper gets drunk, takes the Rover by himself and ends up driving it into a ditch on the outskirts of camp. The next morning, Miller and his dad find Jasper asleep at the wheel and they say they’re going to have to put him in lock up for a few days. Raven visits him in his cell, looking hurt and disappointed. She tells Jasper she won’t go driving with him again unless he quits drinking. So they don’t go driving anymore.

Turns out drinking is the one thing Jasper can really focus on doing. Drinking himself into a stupor becomes his new daily task. When they start turning Jasper away at the bar, he steals ingredients and brews his own hooch. The booze is the only thing that gets him to sleep. Most nights Jasper crashes out on the grass, looking up at the moon and the churning clouds, trying to remember that painting Maya showed him, the one she said was her favorite. Most mornings, Jasper wakes up with a hangover and Monty sitting close by. There will be a blanket thrown over him. He’ll have been turned on his side to keep him from choking on his own vomit. And Monty will start each day with a lecture. He tells Jasper he’s lost too much weight. Tells him he’s going to get pneumonia. Tells him again and again he has to _'snap out of it!'_ But Monty won’t talk about what happened in the mountain. Monty won’t talk about what he did, the terrible things they _both_ did to survive.

One morning Jasper wakes up in a bed with his head shaved. He finds Monty and Bellamy standing over him, wearing matching scowls.

Jasper laughs at them. “Why is my hair gone?” he asks.

“There were _bugs_ living in it,” Monty snaps. “You sleep indoors from now on.”

Monty storms out but Bellamy lingers. Bellamy doesn’t talk much these days which Jasper prefers. He reaches into his pocket and throws something onto the bed. It’s an iPod. Jasper recognizes it. It’s _Maya’s_ iPod.

“I found it when we were clearing out quarantine,” Bellamy explains.

“Grave robber,” Jasper mutters, not meeting his eye.

Bellamy doesn’t rise to the insult. “She’d want you to have it.”

Jasper keeps his expression cold, refusing to show Bellamy how desperately grateful he is for this gift. But when Bellamy leaves, Jasper snatches up the headphones, plugs them into his ears and presses the play button. He spends the rest of that day sitting by the window, listening to every track on her playlists. Every song tells Jasper something new about Maya. They speak of who she was, her fiery passions and her private darkness. Jasper listens and he cries into his sleeves. He sits at the window watching as the sun sets and the moon rises.

With Maya’s music in his ears, it feels like she’s watching it with him.

 

~*~

 

The moon looks even more beautiful reflected in ripples of the ocean.

Jasper watches it from a window on Luna’s rig while sharing a plate of clams with Shay. They’ve been talking all afternoon and into the evening. Right now, Jasper is telling Shay the story of how he once rescued Octavia from a mutant river snake. It’s not as good as her shark story but Shay has some good suggestions for how he might embellish it.

They’re interrupted as Luna approaches, flanked by two of her boatmen.

“You and your people will be leaving now,” she tells him icily.

Jasper’s heart sinks. For a moment he’d forgotten that he’s on a probably hopeless mission to save the human race. It’d been so nice to forget that for a while. Shay offers Jasper a sad shrug, but Luna looks pissed. Jasper wonders what Clarke’s done to offend her.

“Kicking us off your rig already, huh? Can’t say I blame you.”

“This rig is for people who are _done_ fighting,” says Luna.

Hearing this, it’s a struggle for Jasper not to fall on his knees and beg Luna to take him. This is what he wants. It’s what he needs. It’s the only chance he might ever have to heal and live somewhere in peace. Live in this beautiful secret world away from the daily terrors of life on the ground. He wants to be done fighting more than anything.

But Jasper doesn’t ask to stay or ask if he can come back. He gets the feeling Luna already hates the Sky people as much as any other grounder. And not without good reason. So Jasper doesn’t expect her to take him. He doesn’t really think he deserves to be saved. As he tells Shay when they’re saying goodbye, he’d only mess it up.

That’s what Jasper says to Shay before she’s killed right in front of him.

Then Jasper’s hanging by his wrists, watching Luna getting water tortured while some chipped grounder punches him in the stomach. He warns Luna not to take the chip in a voice that’s already lifeless, without hope. Because all Jasper can think is that if they’d never come here, then Shay would still be alive. Luna's beautiful safe haven wouldn’t have been invaded, soon to be destroyed. Just like if the Sky people hadn’t have gone to Mount Weather then Maya and her world wouldn’t have been wiped out. And if the Sky People had never come down to Earth in the first place then how many dead grounders might still be alive right now?

Jasper can feel the chip being held against his lips. He’s struggling to think of a good reason to fight it. To fight for the people who’ve destroy everything. _They’re your friends_ , says a straining voice in his heart.

But Jasper's heart’s already broken. He’s done fighting.

 

~*~

 

Jasper sets the note he’s written for Monty down beside his goggles. The goggles belonging to the dead boy who used to be Monty’s best friend. Jasper really didn’t know what to say in his note. Monty had said all the right things to him. All that stuff about _'getting through this together'_ and _'being happy again'_ even though this world can really suck. There was a time when that would’ve been enough for Jasper.

Jasper doesn’t feel like he deserves to be comforted anymore. He can’t plead the chip. He’s the one who almost messed things up for everybody. _For the entire human race_. Because he’s a coward, a selfish loser, a waste of breath and _why do you even bother living?!_ The question’s been stuck in his head ever since ALIE threw it at him along with all the worst things he’s ever thought about himself.

And all those things are true. He almost killed his friends.

Jasper can’t forgive himself for that. He’s still not forgiven himself for Mount Weather. He just wants to stop messing up. He’s put a plastic sheet down on the floor so hopefully the mess of his suicide won’t be too much for his friends to clean after they find him. He sits on the sheet now. He picks up the gun he stole from Harper. His leg throbs where Monty shot him, a bullet that only scraped his thigh. He wishes Monty had aimed for his head. He wishes he could've died in the city of light. Instead Jasper woke up to find his friends had tied him to a chair. That they were holding him hostage in a world full of pain. Jasper knows they'll never understand, but he can't live with that pain any longer.    

Jasper plugs his ears and listens to Maya’s music as he stares at her favorite painting, a window that he’ll use to escape from this world. To escape from his pain and from all of the crappy things that he’s done. He’s almost there. And then Monty knocks on the door.

Then a few undesired moments later Jasper’s in the control room and Raven’s giving them the punch-line to the biggest cosmic joke he’s ever heard. That she's saved the world but a few months from now the world is dying anyway. No way of stopping it. No point in fighting. And Jasper can’t help it. He bursts out laughing. He laughs and he laughs and he puts the gun down. No need to escape from his pain or punish himself for his sins now. The planet will take care of that for him.

“I’m going to watch the sunrise,” he says as he walks away.

Outside Jasper finds the crest of the hill is already glowing red. The horizon looks like old paper burning at the edges. Earth has been slowly burning up the entire time they've been here. Earth has been laughing at them. It never was survivable. The world finally makes sense to Jasper. The world is here now. He's _in_ the world now. But it won't be for long. 

And Jasper can live with that. Maybe now is his chance to live at last? 

Footfalls on the grass behind him. "Jasper...what were you doing with Harper's gun?"

Monty's voice sounds scared and confused. Jasper wants to hug him again. 

"It doesn't matter now." He sighs. He feels himself smiling. "Nothing matters now."

 

~*~

 

After Clarke lets Jasper out of the cell, he passes Jaha in the hall. The former chancellor looks at him sternly and says _‘No more pranks, Mr Jordan’_ , then warns him to attend his work detail or else his name won’t be included in the lottery for humanity’s survival.

Jasper doesn’t attend his work detail. He goes walking in the woods instead.

They say that in the time before computers and bombs nuked the world that kids used to play outside in the forest on sunny days. Jasper’s still a kid. He’ll always be a kid. He’ll never turn eighteen now. He doesn’t mind. He’d rather not grow up. He’d rather play in the woods while the sun's still shining. Before all this beauty is turned to ash and dust.

Jasper climbs trees and dangles upside-down from their branches. He’s not been in a tree since the grounders strung him up in one, trying to use him as live bait. The memory doesn’t frighten him anymore. Nothing does. He’s not going to live his last days in fear.

After his climb, Jasper strips off his clothes and swims in the river, just like they’d wanted to do on their very first day down on Earth. He wishes Monty, Octavia, Finn and even Clarke were here with him. He wonders if that snake thing that attacked Octavia is still around somewhere. He wonders if it’ll come and eat him. He feels sad when it doesn’t appear. The radiation’s probably killed it already. The water he’s bathing in is probably toxic. But it still feels cool and soothing washing against the electrical burn on his side, the angry red patch of skin where Clarke shock-lashed him. If something feels good then Jasper doesn’t worry over whether it’ll kill him. The whole world will be killing him soon enough.

After his swim, Jasper goes picking wild flowers and berries. He smells and licks them. He eats the ones that taste best. Some of them make him puke but he doesn’t let that spoil his day. Jasper is giddy when he finds the jobi nuts. Just the snack that he wanted for this picnic. He nibbles on a handful of them as he heads for the Dropship.

Jasper finds a squirrel sitting by the doorway of the old wrecked spacecraft. The squirrel’s fur is falling out. Radiation burns cover its bald patches. Its face is all puffy and mutated. Its one swollen eye stares up at Jasper as he approaches it slowly. He sits down beside the squirrel and strokes its head with a gentle finger. The little creature is trembling but it looks too weak to run. It looks lonely. Jasper wonders if all its friends are dead.

He holds out his palm and lets the squirrel take the rest of his jobi nuts. It looks like it needs the drugs more than he does. Besides, Jasper’s already tripping. The forest has turned an impossibly vivid green and the air is humming all around him. As night falls Jasper sees many of his lost friends stepping out of the shadows. Finn and Fox, Monroe and Sterling, Roma and Myles…they’re all here, their faces all ghosting before his eyes. Jasper raises his flask of moonshine, toasting them. “See you soon, guys. See you on the other side.”

Jasper wakes sometime in the afternoon of the next day. The little squirrel is curled up beside him, no longer breathing. An overdose, he guesses. Jasper’s heart lurches before he realizes that it’s better off this way. It was in pain. It was suffering. It's at peace now.

Jasper gets to his feet and he makes his way back towards Arkadia. He really wants to tell Monty about the lovely day he’s had, see if maybe Monty would like to go walking in the woods with him tomorrow. He’d like to share the beauty of this forest with someone before it’s all gone. Before _they_ are all gone. Jasper is halfway down the hill slope when he hears the explosion and sees the smoke rising from their camp in the distance.

That’s when Jasper knows he’s made the right choice about what to do with his last remaining days. That’s when he realizes he has to show the others there’s another way.

The clock is ticking.

 

~*~

 

The party is Jasper’s world. It’s the world he’s created for himself and anyone else who cares to join him. Anyone who wants to live before it's too late. It’s like the idea Luna had with her rig. If you can’t live in your society anymore and you don’t want to fight them, then you have to just go your own way. Save yourself and save anyone who’ll come with you, the best way you know how.

Parties are the only thing Jasper was ever any good at. Even as a goofball kid on the Ark, Jasper would always get an invite because everyone knew he’d smuggle in the best dope. Do the best with what you've got. He knows his party world will be ending soon, but while it lasts everyone in his world is free to do whatever the hell they want. And it turns out at the end of the world what really matters to these people is pleasure, laughter and love. The first night of his party, Jasper loses his virginity to three girls and two boys, all rolling around on a blanket spread out on the floor. He can’t remember their names, but what does that matter. He falls in love every time as they taste each other’s lips and cling to each other’s skin. Sweaty hands stroke his face. A soft finger presses a pill to his tongue and washes it down with booze. Jasper swallows it all. He loves everyone, savors everything. _If you never did you should, these things are fun and fun is good._ Fun is good.

After Jasper disentangles himself and dresses and crawls off the blanket, he sees Harper sitting alone at the piano. She doesn’t look like she’s having much fun. Jasper walks over and sits beside her, looking down at the black and white keys. Maya only ever had the time to teach him how to play Chopsticks. He plays it for Harper now, his fingers clumsy on the notes, and Harper manages a smile. Jasper takes her by the hand, leading her away from the bar. They pass Bellamy who's clumsily curled up in a corner with Bree. Harper laughs and Jasper whistles. Bellamy throws his balled up shirt at them, but he’s smiling too. Jasper actually got Bellamy to smile.

Jasper and Harper sit out on the grass with one blanket wrapped around their shoulders. They watch the stars blink out and wait for the sunrise. They don’t speak but occasionally they share a sad smile.

They’re both heartsick for the same person. Both wishing he was here.

Monty’s the last thing keeping them from leaving now.

 

~*~

 

Jasper spends his last day working while the others run round having fun.

He's trying to remember his chemistry. He’s got his beakers and his measuring flasks all set out before him. He’s been mixing for hours trying to get this last cocktail right. Riley lies under a blanket close by, his body surrounded by candles. Riley didn’t get sick. He didn’t scream. He just quietly slipped away from them, as peaceful as falling asleep.

When the radiation sickness came during the night, Jasper knew that he had to do something. He knows this jobi tea, this powerful medicine, is the best escape they can hope for now. So it’s Jasper’s job to brew it right. He owes them that much. He’s the one that got them into this. The party’s been fun, it’s been so much fun. But this is when it gets serious. His people are getting weary. They’ve lost their appetites. They’ve had enough. They’re just waiting for the death wave to take them now. Only it won’t be the prime fire that kills them. No, the radiation is going to melt them from the inside first. It'll be slow. They’ll be gasping in pain. They’ll die like the people of Mount Weather. Jasper can’t let them go out that way. He’s determined to make them a cure. This dose of medicine to soothe their pains, alcohol to drown their sorrows, sedatives to send them to sleep and hallucinogens for one last sweet dream. Jasper works until he’s filled up the still with enough jobi tea for everybody. He draws lines on the cups that he’s placed on the bar so they’ll know the right amount to drink.

“It’s been a blast, guys,” says Jasper, raising his own cup to them.

His party people huddle round him. They hug him, thank him even. Jasper reminds them one last time that Monty will take anyone who wants to leave in the Rover. But he knows they won’t change their minds any more than he will. Their eyes look tired and thirsty. They line up at the bar for their last drink. Harper’s the only one who hesitates.

Jasper takes her aside and then asks, “Where is he?”

“The store room. Still gathering last supplies.”

Jasper nods. “I've got to do this now. Before he finds me.”

“You’re not going to say goodbye?” Harper asks.

There’s nothing Jasper wants more than to say goodbye to Monty Green. He loves that Monty still thinks they’re all going to the bunker tonight. He loves that his boy is here trying to be the hero even for people who don’t want to be saved. He hates that he’s disappointing him, hates that he's leaving him. Jasper feels like he's been saying a long goodbye to Monty for months now, but it hasn't made it any easier to let go.

“He’ll never understand. He’s never going to forgive me.”

“Maybe not,” says Harper. “But he’ll still love you.”

Jasper hopes she’s right. Maybe she is. After all, he never really forgave Monty for what happened in the mountain and yet he still loves him. He never stopped loving him. Jasper hugs Harper goodbye, he feels her tears trickle down his neck and then he heads out of the party room. He glances over his shoulder once and he sees Harper still isn’t moving towards the bar. _She’s changed her mind,_ Jasper thinks. _She’s going to go to the bunker with Monty_. Somehow he knows it. And it's a relief to know that he won’t be leaving his friend alone.

Jasper walks the halls until he finds the window with the best view of the moon. He stands before its glass and pulls a blanket around his shoulders to keep himself from trembling. He needs a steady hand now. He can already feel the radiation burns flowering on his skin. Earth isn’t looking much healthier. It’s all turning red out there. Monty has told him that Earth is dying tomorrow. And even if there’s a way to survive on a dying planet, Jasper doesn’t want to be here after everything that’s beautiful about this world has burned away.

“Here’s to you,” Jasper says, toasting the world outside his window.

He drains his cup. He lets it go. He lets everything go.

Then he sighs and stares up at the moon.

 

 

_Ends_


End file.
